Every word has a consequence. Every silence too.

As the Business Head for The Times of India, I lead strategic initiatives and drive growth for one of the nation's most influential media organisations. My journalist friends believe I've crossed over to the proverbial dark side. Living on the edges of a dynamic newsroom, I dabble infrequently into these times that we live and believe in the spectatorial axiom – 'distance provides perspective'. LESS ... MORE
Some mornings, I wake up and feel like I've wandered into a Beckett play with bad lighting. The coffee's still bitter, the headlines still absurd, and the world still insists on its commitment to performative collapse.
NASA, in its usual quietly panicked way, says droughts and floods have doubled. Not nudged, not nudging—doubled. It's the sort of data that should prompt emergency sessions, maybe a global reckoning or two. Instead, we get hashtags, panel discussions, and climate ministers giving interviews from fossil-fuel-sponsored lounges.
Britain, meanwhile, is crisping. 32 degrees in southeast England. '100 times more likely,' say the models, thanks to climate change. One imagines Queen Victoria rising from the grave just to slap the thermostat. And yet, we carry on—browsing weekend getaways, debating air conditioner brands—while pretending this is normal.
But what's truly deafening is the silence. The bureaucratic stillness. The studied inaction. Albert Camus wrote of the absurd as 'a confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.' But I'd argue the world is no longer silent. It's shrieking. The unreasonable silence now lies squarely on our end.
Then there's Trump, of course. Authorising 'Operation Midnight Hammer'—because nothing says sober diplomacy like a Tom Clancy fever dream. Seven stealth bombers, a strike on Iran's nuclear facility, and suddenly foreign policy reads like rejected Top Gun fan fiction. Maverick, but with midterms.
Markets react like they always do: panicked, posturing, and pretending to understand. Oil flirted with $80. The European Central Bank cut rates. The Fed stood still, as if still figuring out whether it's managing inflation or mood swings. Somewhere in all this, Jean-Paul Sartre might have whispered, 'Man is condemned to be free.' Yes. And central banks are condemned to be late.
The G7 met in Alberta and produced a flurry of statements on 'shared prosperity' and 'climate resilience'—terms now so hollow they echo when spoken. It's like watching a piano recital on the Titanic. We are awash in vocabulary, but bone-dry on courage.
That's when the words hit me—more urgent, more distilled than anything I could write:
'Every word has a consequence. Every silence too.'
— Jean-Paul Sartre
It's not just philosophical embroidery. It's the diagnosis. We are not dying from what is said, but from what is left unsaid. From the global pauses. The quiet vetoes. The waiting-for-someone-else-to-move.
And still, we scroll, we post, we like. We remain astonishingly fluent in denial. The world is not ending with a bang, but a buffer wheel.
So yes—every word has a consequence. And every silence too. And every time we pretend otherwise, we're not avoiding the fire. We're fanning it.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to find sunscreen with a warning label that says: 'May not protect against existential dread.'
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Time of India

an hour ago

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First Post

an hour ago

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File image/AP US Vice-President JD Vance, who had been among those sceptical of an attack of Iran , decided to support Trump. By now, a 'camaraderie' had taken hold in the team. The US at this time gave Israel a heads-up that it was going to attack Iran. A day-and-a-half after Trump's two week announcement, US aircraft including B-2 bombers were on their way to Iran. Meanwhile, Trump was at a golf course in New Jersey and Vance was on his way back from California. Trump reached the White House by the time the bombers entered Iran's airspace. Inside the Situation Room Trump and Vance then went straight into the Situation Room. They were accompanied by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, White House counsel Dave Warrington, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Photos from the Situation Room showed Trump, wearing a red 'Make America Great Again hat', watching the strikes with his top advisors. Trump informed the world of the development on social media only after the US bombers had left Iran's airspace. A US Air Force B-2 stealth bomber returns after the US attacked key Iranian nuclear sites, at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. Reuters 'We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,' Trump wrote. A 'a full payload of bombs was dropped on the primary site, Fordow.' Officials said no one knows precisely when Trump decided to pull the trigger. 'I don't know that any of us knew exactly when the President made the decision, except for the President himself,' JD Vance said. Trump 'over time decided this was necessary', Vance added. 'But of course, he had the ability to call off this attack until the very last minute. He obviously decided to proceed.' Tulsi Gabbard absent Interestingly, one person who wasn't present in the Situation Room was Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Trump in recent days had contradicted Gabbard's earlier statements on whether Iran was close to developing a nuclear weapon. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Gabbard in the past has been a staunch opponent of US interventionism in West Asia. 'I don't care what she said, Trump told reporters. Gabbard earlier this year had testified before US Congress that Iran did not have a nuclear weapon and was not in the process of trying to develop one. Tulsi Gabbard in the past has been a staunch opponent of US interventionism in West Asia. Reuters 'The IC [Intelligence Community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003,' Gabbard said. Gabbard in recent days had tried to close the gap between herself and Trump on Iran, claiming the media had taken her remarks out of context. Vance too had come to Gabbard's defence, issuing a statement calling her a loyal member of the team. With inputs from agencies